Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations do not belong in the same place at the same time. It gets crazier every year. Some years I rebel and refuse to buy anything that has Halloween and Christmas items out at the same time.

I was scheduled to be out of town for Thanksgiving, so I wasn’t really breaking my own rules when I decided to decorate for Christmas early. After visiting friends in London, Kentucky in mid-November whose home looked like a Christmas shop, it put me in a very festive frame of mind.

Over the last five years or more because of knee issues, surgeries, and recovery, I have done very little Christmas decorating. I’ve made up for it this year already! I decided to get it done before Thanksgiving, so I could actually have time to do it without being stressed out about it.

Going into my attic is an adventure. I have boxes all over the place, stuffed with goodies I’ve forgotten about. I knew where the trees happened to be. I have four of the skinny little pencil trees in all different heights. They were all stuffed into one big Christmas tree bag. I knew where my wreaths were because they were in a round zipper container. The rest was a snipe hunt. I thought for sure they were there, but I still didn’t find some of them.

My house looked like Christmas threw up in my living room for three or four days. Every time I went in the attic and opened a new box, I found Christmas surprises. It was a Christmas walk down Memory Lane. I still didn’t find some of my favorite things, like stuffed reindeer my brother bought for me when I had a December knee replacement surgery.

I also had to go to the basement to retrieve some treasures. A box of glass candles collected and stored over the years slid off the top shelf and almost knocked me out cold. I have never had a bigger goose egg on my forehead!

Apparently I have stored things away, couldn’t find them, and replaced those same items with duplicates when they were on sale. I bet I’m not the only one guilty of this.

Last year I used birthday and Christmas money to buy a set of costly Christmas dinnerware when the items were 75 percent off after Christmas. I was so happy to drag the new dishes out of the basement and put them through the dishwasher. Of course that meant I had to rearrange all of my cabinet space to make room for another set of dishes.

I still haven’t located my nativity set bought by a student in my classroom one year. It is very special to me. I had to make myself stop dragging things downstairs from the attic because I already started dragging them back up after the holidays.

When I finally set a limit, got everything arranged, floors mopped and empty boxes back up in the attic, I was ready to sit down and have a bite of supper. Somehow I managed to get my sweater snagged on one of the Christmas trees sitting on a side table in the dining room. It hit the floor, fell apart, and ornaments went flying in all directions. Several broke in the newly cleaned floor. I sat down and ate my scrambled eggs and toast anyhow before I cleaned up the mess.

Maybe I needed that little setback as a reminder that no matter how much we love holiday festivities and decorations, the true meaning of Christmas is the only thing that really matters.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

That is certainly a reason to celebrate!

Reach Judith Victoria Hensley at judith99@bellsouth.net or on Facebook. Check out her blog: One Step Beyond the Door.